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EMILY BRADY / Humboldt: : Life on America’s Marijuana Frontier

Like Deborah Feldman's Unorthodox and Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, journalist
Emily Brady's Humboldt journeys into a unique, secretive subculture -- a place that
marijuana built.

Say the words "Humboldt County" to a stranger and you might receive a
knowing grin. Humboldtis a narrative exploration of
this infamous and insular community in Northern California that has existed
primarily on the cultivation and sale of marijuana for decades. It's a place
where business is done with thick wads of cash and savings are buried in plastic
pickle barrels in the backyard.

In Humboldt, marijuana supports everything from fire departments to schools,
but it comes with a heavy price. As legalization looms, the community stands at
a crossroads and its inhabitants are deeply split on the issue-some want to
claim their rightful heritage as master growers, others want to continue
reaping the inflated profits of the black market. Emily Brady spent a year
living in this highly secretive community so that she could take readers inside
this virtually unknown world of eccentric characters that is undergoing a
radical transformation while teetering on the edge of legality.

California
was the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996 with law 215, but in
2010, the statewide initiative to legalize marijuana, Proposition 19, the Tax
and Regulate Cannabis Act, pushed the Humboldt community to begin discussions
of their economic future. Legalization would bring a dramatic decrease in
profit from the lucrative black market. The first community-wide meeting
was called “The Post-Marijuana Prohibition Economy Forum” or “What’s After
Pot?” for short. This meeting is where Humboldt begins. As
the contentious issue of legalization was widely debated, Brady followed four
people with very different perspectives on and relationships to marijuana
through the vote on Proposition 19, and, in the process, opened the door to
readers.

Mare is one
of the original back-to-the-land Humboldt community members. Crockett is
a high-stakes, potentially high-rewards summer grower. Bob is the sheriff
in Southern Humboldt County attempting to enforce laws that fall in a grey area
of right and wrong. Emma was born in Humboldt and her single mother grew
marijuana until she got busted when Emma was ten. She wrote her college
thesis on the high youth death rate of Humboldt County and advocates for
legalization. By following each of these four characters, Emily Brady
presents a diverse and complete perspective from inside this secretive and
illegal world, as it prepares for change.

Emily Brady
is a former New York Times reporter. Her writing has also appeared in The
Village Voice, Time, Columbia Journalism Review, and Plenty.